Christopher Owens announced earlier this year that his band Girls was no more… and all the fans were greatly disappointed of course. Their last album ‘Father, Son, Holy Ghost’ was praised by the critics, so it had to be a waste… Well, there is an update as Chris Owens just posted the first single from his forthcoming solo album, ‘Lysandre’, set to be released on January 15th via Fat Possum.
The song ‘Here We Go’ is embracing the soft side of Girls' albums, as it is a sort of folk approach with Chris’ heartbroken and fragile voice harmonizing with a… girl. If it gives any idea of what we should expect for the future album, it is a super mellow, a stripped down ballad, comforting and lullaby-esque, hardly becoming alive with the use of a melodica, an electric guitar solo, and even a flute solo as if we were in the 60 or 70s all over again. As usual with Owens music, it sounds familiar at the first listening, it soothes you up like a warm blanket, whereas you know for sure you have never listened to the damn song.
There is also another track posted on Soundcloud with the first track included, ‘Lysandre’s Theme’/’Here We Go’, working as a nice guitar prelude to the song.
According to Christopher Owens’ website, the album was ‘named for a girl he met whilst in France for a festival performance’, and he describes the record as ‘a coming of age story, a road trip, a love story’, but he adds ‘’Lysandre’ could easily be mistaken as an album about a love affair. But it’s much more than that’. The album was recorded with Doug Boehm, who has worked with Girls, so we aren’t far away from Owens' previous work. However, one thing I liked about Girls’ last album, was the wild diversity of the styles forming a (holy) unity,… I hope it’s gonna be the same with Lysandre
Here is ‘Lysandre’ track list:
01 Lysandre's Theme
02 Here We Go
03 New York City
04 A Broken Heart
05 Here We Go Again
06 Riviera Rock
07 Love Is in the Ear of the Listener
08 Lysandre
09 Everywhere You Knew
10 Closing Theme
11 Part of Me (Lysandre's Epilogue)